Tuesday, June 30, 2009

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Mark ‘Billy’ Byles smashed the previous record of 83 by crafting an impressive 150 pots in the 60 minutes.

A large crowd turned out at the The Friars' Aylesford Priory on Sunday to see the venue’s own contestant set the new world’s best.

Mr Byles, the co-founder of Aylesford Pottery set within the religious grounds, was delighted by his record-breaking effort.He told Yourmaidstone: “I’m feeling really happy. It was fantastic and a really good atmosphere.

“I was quite surprised by the amount of people that turned up but you could feel the anxiety – I’m quite happy that feeling has gone away now.”

Although he was quietly confident of beating the record, Mr Byles, from Ashford, had hurt his hand while making big terracotta pots days before the event.

He braved the injury to get on with the competition, saying: “My hand was OK, I just kept going but I’m resting it now.”

Former record holder Mary Chapelhow did her best to defend her title but even though she made more than her previous record, she lost out to Mr Byles by 32 pots.

Speaking before the competition Ms Chapelhow said that The Friars’ potter was her toughest competitor and perhaps it was time for a new champion.

She said: “This is Billy’s thing because he works in production and is used to it, so he should be feeling pretty confident.

“I have been doing this for many years now so maybe it is time for a change and to let someone else be the world record holder.”

Mr Byles, 37, said: “Mary did really well, she was a bit gutted she lost her title but that is just because she is so competitive.”

Mr Byles and Ms Chapelhow were joined in the final by David Melville, from Rochester.

There was meant to be more contestants but Mr Byles believes they backed out because they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance.

The world record attempt ran throughout the annual Potters Market, at the Friars, which attracts pottery enthusiasts from across the country.

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Mark ‘Billy’ Byles smashed the previous record of 83 by crafting an impressive 150 pots in the 60 minutes.

A large crowd turned out at the The Friars' Aylesford Priory on Sunday to see the venue’s own contestant set the new world’s best.

Mr Byles, the co-founder of Aylesford Pottery set within the religious grounds, was delighted by his record-breaking effort.He told Yourmaidstone: “I’m feeling really happy. It was fantastic and a really good atmosphere.

“I was quite surprised by the amount of people that turned up but you could feel the anxiety – I’m quite happy that feeling has gone away now.”

Although he was quietly confident of beating the record, Mr Byles, from Ashford, had hurt his hand while making big terracotta pots days before the event.

He braved the injury to get on with the competition, saying: “My hand was OK, I just kept going but I’m resting it now.”

Former record holder Mary Chapelhow did her best to defend her title but even though she made more than her previous record, she lost out to Mr Byles by 32 pots.

Speaking before the competition Ms Chapelhow said that The Friars’ potter was her toughest competitor and perhaps it was time for a new champion.

She said: “This is Billy’s thing because he works in production and is used to it, so he should be feeling pretty confident.

“I have been doing this for many years now so maybe it is time for a change and to let someone else be the world record holder.”

Mr Byles, 37, said: “Mary did really well, she was a bit gutted she lost her title but that is just because she is so competitive.”

Mr Byles and Ms Chapelhow were joined in the final by David Melville, from Rochester.

There was meant to be more contestants but Mr Byles believes they backed out because they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance.

The world record attempt ran throughout the annual Potters Market, at the Friars, which attracts pottery enthusiasts from across the country.

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When I graduated from Elkhorn high school (EHS class of 1969) and headed off to the state university twenty mile from the farm where I was raised, I had two ideas in mind. I would either major in English and teach high school students how to love literature and write decent research papers, or I would major in art and teach high school students how to - what? Love art as I did.

I ended up with the English option by default. My freshman intro to art class was held in the basement of a science building on campus, a cement bunker where I was urged to draw with a black marker and not lift it from the page. We also were required to carve blocks of wood into interesting shapes with a set of Exacto blades. After I accidentally drove the blade into the middle joint of my left pointer finger and fainted dead away onto the cement floor, followed by several stitches in said finger, I decided that writing term papers about Shakespearean heroines was easier and safer. I became an English major.

So - I never got to take a figure drawing class. I like drawing people, but my "models" are usually sleeping people at airports or the library, or the beach. I have drawn the back of many heads. I try to draw people quickly in theaters, coffee shops, whatever I can. But once spotted, people either become nervous or self-conscious and it's over.

I thought I had the answer this summer when I read about a summer figure drawing class in Madison. I had looked at these classes before, but the driving and the timing concerned me. I live 40 miles from the UW Madison campus, and most classes ran until 10:00 PM, which meant I would get home really late (for me). I hate to admit it, but my eyes aren't as good as they once were, especially at night. This class runs until 9:14 p.m., which means that if the weather is good, and road construction isn't too awful, I get home by 10:30 p.m. I keep the cell phone charged,Anyway, I have enjoyed the evenings once a week devoted just to drawing. On my own at home I tend to work a lot from photos, and this class forces me to use my eyes, to work from a live model.

Ah, a live model. Herein lies the rub. Of the five classes I have attended, only three have had models. Twice no model showed up at all, so we were reduced to drawing each other. I was disappointed. I ran this little pep talk in my head:

You paid your fees. You want to learn to draw from life. You want to learn new techniques. Quit your bellyaching and draw!

Yes, but there is the two hours of driving, the rushing around, the parking fees...

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These "Manga Ormolu" pieces were made by Canadian artist Brendan L.S. Tang. Combining blue and white with new robotic elements, he creates a parasitic evolution of the pot.

From his Artist statement.

"While Manga Ormolu offers multiple points of entry into sociocultural dialogue, manga, bynature, doesn’t take itself too seriously. The futuristic ornamentation can be excessive, selfaggrandizing,even ridiculous. This is a fitting reflection of our human need to envision andtranslate fantastic ideas to reality; in fact, striving for transcendence is a unifying feature ofhuman cultural history. This characteristic is reflected in the unassuming, yet utterlytransformable material of clay. Manga Ormolu, through content, form and material, vividlydemonstrates the conflicting and complementary forces that shape our perceptions of Ourselvesand the Other."

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These "Manga Ormolu" pieces were made by Canadian artist Brendan L.S. Tang. Combining blue and white with new robotic elements, he creates a parasitic evolution of the pot.

From his Artist statement.

"While Manga Ormolu offers multiple points of entry into sociocultural dialogue, manga, bynature, doesn’t take itself too seriously. The futuristic ornamentation can be excessive, selfaggrandizing,even ridiculous. This is a fitting reflection of our human need to envision andtranslate fantastic ideas to reality; in fact, striving for transcendence is a unifying feature ofhuman cultural history. This characteristic is reflected in the unassuming, yet utterlytransformable material of clay. Manga Ormolu, through content, form and material, vividlydemonstrates the conflicting and complementary forces that shape our perceptions of Ourselvesand the Other."

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Jim over as Sophia's Dad's Pots was kind enough to post a review of Porcelain for the People.

Here is a snippet.

"...it seemed to not absorb water as much while throwing so it was unnecessary to continually add water. This could be a good thing, I suppose, but after I get to a certain point, the ribs come out and all surface water is “ribbed” off at that point. It seemed to be very responsive to the throwing actions (centering, opening, pulling up, and finishing and in my case, even chattering)."

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Jim over as Sophia's Dad's Pots was kind enough to post a review of Porcelain for the People.

Here is a snippet.

"...it seemed to not absorb water as much while throwing so it was unnecessary to continually add water. This could be a good thing, I suppose, but after I get to a certain point, the ribs come out and all surface water is “ribbed” off at that point. It seemed to be very responsive to the throwing actions (centering, opening, pulling up, and finishing and in my case, even chattering)."

Monday, June 29, 2009

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At this point in the tape Grandma talks about her family coming to Milwaukee while her stepfather is doing medical training in Boston. My mother, Carol, asks a few questions about cooking and the Depression.

Milwaukee was another disappointment to me. We couldn’t find a place to stay, and we went to a cheap hotel and lived there for a little while, and read want ads. Finally decided that I would have to go and board and room to start high school. I went into high school at twelve years old. In order to do this I had to work for my board and room., and be away from my father and mother, and the baby, which was the big hurt. But we got together occasionally.

But life as a student, trying to go to school and still work, do the work at home, and being as lonely as I was and having only two dresses to my name. Nobody wore slacks in those days. That was entirely out of the question. You wore skirts and a blouse or a dress. And Mother gave me one of her old dark blue dresses, and I cut it off at the waist and made a skirt for myself, and wore it out to the prom with a pink blouse. It was very very sad. When I got to the prom I found out I was the only one that couldn’t have an evening dress on. I didn’t know they wore evening dresses to proms. I didn’t even know what proms were. Twelve years old and from the Hicksville, I think they thought I was. But my date was wonderful, and didn’t – never reproached me or anything. In fact he took me over and introduced me to his folks. He was a complete gentleman. So, that was my first humiliating experience at school. But I was to have a lot of them. Except of course when I was (unintelligible), when it was one big humiliation. Life was rough. And it was rough for many long years after that, but I won’t go into all those details.

We’ll let the girls ask me some questions now, about the Depression, probably, and my marriage.

Carol: Well, Mother, ah, I don’t remember Grandma Smith as being that great of a cook, but you were always a very good cook. So, how young did you start your cooking?

I was eleven when I started cooking on the ranch. Um, I helped, oh earlier than that I started helping and learning. And I liked it, so I sort of took over, making the cakes and pastries and things while we were still on the farm. And I baked cakes then. We had thrashers - great crews of men, they came to thrash the wheat, sometimes as many as twenty men, and that was a lot of cooking. So I had plenty of experience. But I always liked to cook and I liked to experiment and do things . When I worked for my board and room I did a lot of cooking. And I always liked to try new recipes, and I did them.

Carol: What about during the Depression?

During the Depression it was very hard to cook because we didn’t have any money, and the foods that were had to be had, even though they were cheap, they were expensive to us.

But we skipped a lot of time here. I had to get married in the meantime. We got married during the Depression,. while we were still out on DeWitt’s cherry ranch Mother and I and DuRell, waiting for my stepfather to graduate. And he was going to school back East then at Boston. And he went to Brigham Young and he went to Massachusetts General, and all the big hospitals back there where he interned. And he had started out in Marquette in Milwaukee. So, while all this was going on we were hanging on, trying to get by ‘til he got though. In the meantime I had grown up. I was eighteen, and then I was into my twenties. By this time we were out at Troy, and Mother was still doing her practical nursing, and there were babies born here and there. I was taking care of DuRell, and doing babysitting for the neighbors.

Carol: Was that the first paying job you had? Baby sitting?

Yes, it was, if you don’t count working for my board and room, which was much harder than baby sitting. The first I got money for was babysitting, and I got only about fifty cents a night. That was top wages then. And the night meant sometimes you had to stay all night. If they didn’t have transportation home or whoever you were staying for didn’t want you to leave. So, you never knew of you were going to stay all night or not, when you left, which wasn’t very happy for Mother. We didn’t have a phone at first at the farm, but after the boys started calling, the neighbors got really tired of having me go back and forth to answer the phone, so eventually, even though we didn’t have very much money, we did put a phone in.

But we were expected to live on a very very small amount of money. And we had to stretch it. I remember one time I put my family on a very strict diet, because I was supposed to mange the finances, so I could buy a new bathing suit, and the bathing suit was five dollars. So for a week we lived on cabbages and boiled potatoes, and we used to go out and pick dandelions and wild asparagus, and all that stuff.

Carol: Is this when you were in Troy?

Yes, when we were in Troy. We boiled it up. But it tasted pretty good. We were always hungry then, and everything we had, whether it was expensive or not, tasted good. And I finally got my bathing suit, but they wouldn’t let me get any more clothes that way. They said I was taking it out on them, and it wasn’t fair.

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I hope everyone had a excellent weekend. Mrs. Rose and I had a nice relaxing time. Working around the house etc. Saturday we had our first showing of the year at our Outdoor Theater, The Dark Crystal. It was great. Plus this was the first time we got to use our Nintendo Wii at the theater. Sooo much fun. except for the part where our Friends Corey and Dan's almost 5 year old daughter Claire, beat the pants off me at boxing...Yes I do feel inadequate.

Here is a picture of the theater. It is tons of fun. It dosen't show well in the picture, but the screen is 20' wide! Learn more about Outdoor Theaters Here and Here.

Ok, Back to Clay.

I have been working on a project for a couple of days that some of you may have noticed. On the right side of the blog, you will now notice a long list, labeled Ceramic Blogs-Master List. I started this the other day when I realized that my own collection of bookmarked ceramic blogs was a mess. So I decided to start a list of EVERY ceramic blogs out there. So far the list is 310 (310!) blogs long (not including this very blog). I can't believe the size of the list, and it keeps growing. It goes to show, how big the ceramics community out there is. If you know one that I missed, let me know by posting a comment with this post. I made this list with the help of my friends on Twitter. On a side note, everyone should really head over to Twitter and start a profile. I didn't think too much of it at first. When I found the ceramics community, it became a whole new thing. You can find the community from my profile. It is a great group of people and ever growing.http://twitter.com/matt_davesclays

Also I want to welcome a new member to the Slipcast community. We are going to have a guest Blogger in July, Avi Arenfeld. Avi is an old student of mine and a great potter. Avi Is from NYC and has his BFA from Alfred. he is currently in California, as last year he was a resident at the Mendocino Art Center.

On top of that, he is a web designer. He did the website for mattanddavesclays.com. If you are looking for a great web designer, contact Avi.

Avi is going to Japan in July for a couple of weeks and he is going to report on all thing ceramics going on in the land of the Rising Sun. Should be awesome!

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I hope everyone had a excellent weekend. Mrs. Rose and I had a nice relaxing time. Working around the house etc. Saturday we had our first showing of the year at our Outdoor Theater, The Dark Crystal. It was great. Plus this was the first time we got to use our Nintendo Wii at the theater. Sooo much fun. except for the part where our Friends Corey and Dan's almost 5 year old daughter Claire, beat the pants off me at boxing...Yes I do feel inadequate.

Here is a picture of the theater. It is tons of fun. It dosen't show well in the picture, but the screen is 20' wide! Learn more about Outdoor Theaters Here and Here.

Ok, Back to Clay.

I have been working on a project for a couple of days that some of you may have noticed. On the right side of the blog, you will now notice a long list, labeled Ceramic Blogs-Master List. I started this the other day when I realized that my own collection of bookmarked ceramic blogs was a mess. So I decided to start a list of EVERY ceramic blogs out there. So far the list is 310 (310!) blogs long (not including this very blog). I can't believe the size of the list, and it keeps growing. It goes to show, how big the ceramics community out there is. If you know one that I missed, let me know by posting a comment with this post. I made this list with the help of my friends on Twitter. On a side note, everyone should really head over to Twitter and start a profile. I didn't think too much of it at first. When I found the ceramics community, it became a whole new thing. You can find the community from my profile. It is a great group of people and ever growing.http://twitter.com/matt_davesclays

Also I want to welcome a new member to the Slipcast community. We are going to have a guest Blogger in July, Avi Arenfeld. Avi is an old student of mine and a great potter. Avi Is from NYC and has his BFA from Alfred. he is currently in California, as last year he was a resident at the Mendocino Art Center.

On top of that, he is a web designer. He did the website for mattanddavesclays.com. If you are looking for a great web designer, contact Avi.

Avi is going to Japan in July for a couple of weeks and he is going to report on all thing ceramics going on in the land of the Rising Sun. Should be awesome!

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Lem is a ceramics collective out of Finland, formed at a gas station on the way to Helsinki. I think that is the best way to put a group together. I heard that Bachman-Turner Overdrive came together the same way.

This series is called the Animal Series and tells stories in everyday ceramic tableware through animals, creating new life and meaning for everyday common tableware. It reminds me of the cereal bowls, my next door neighbors the Cooneys had when I was a kid. There were small figurines glazed to the bottom of the bowl that you discovered as you ate.

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Lem is a ceramics collective out of Finland, formed at a gas station on the way to Helsinki. I think that is the best way to put a group together. I heard that Bachman-Turner Overdrive came together the same way.

This series is called the Animal Series and tells stories in everyday ceramic tableware through animals, creating new life and meaning for everyday common tableware. It reminds me of the cereal bowls, my next door neighbors the Cooneys had when I was a kid. There were small figurines glazed to the bottom of the bowl that you discovered as you ate.

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I could not resist. Now I know these have been known in ceramic circles for a long time. In fact when I was an undergrad Invalid cups and Neti Pots were popular objects. I'm not making any medical claims about the value of this process. All I can say is that when I have a sore throat, Mrs. Rose makes me gargle with Salt water, and this seems to be the same process...in your nose.The real reason I'm posting this is for a good Monday morning laugh. Watch the video, please. The facial expression of the woman in the demo is priceless. It seems like at sometime in her life she saw some things that she can't un-see. Enjoy

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I could not resist. Now I know these have been known in ceramic circles for a long time. In fact when I was an undergrad Invalid cups and Neti Pots were popular objects. I'm not making any medical claims about the value of this process. All I can say is that when I have a sore throat, Mrs. Rose makes me gargle with Salt water, and this seems to be the same process...in your nose.The real reason I'm posting this is for a good Monday morning laugh. Watch the video, please. The facial expression of the woman in the demo is priceless. It seems like at sometime in her life she saw some things that she can't un-see. Enjoy